Musings and Sometimes Rants about the non-equal status of Fathers in Family Law and Parenting. Additionally periodic comparisons to the treatment of men compared to women in other areas including health care.

I am a very confused father of 4 daughters 2 of whom are out of school and the 2 youngest are doing quite well in our school system. I see your PS ads on TV focusing on the 3rd world and below I see your description of your organization. The bolding is mine.

Plan is a global movement for change to help children in more than 45 developing countries.

Each year, our work impacts the lives of more than 3.5 million families and their children in over 25,000 communities.

Plan is a not for profit organization and we work with people of all different religions and cultures. (but apparently not genders)

You say you are helping children and families but all I see is a very visible campaign for girls. http://www.becauseiamagirl.ca/ Although Ontario, where I reside, is a "have not" Province within our Federation, we are not yet a 3rd world country save some aboriginal reserves. It doesn't say anything about boys who for many years in Canada have been way behind girls in terms of academic achievement. In fact boys seldom see a male teacher in their first 10 years of education. Here are a few of many areas favouring females in this country. Serious imbalances in degrees granted, approximately 60% female - 40% male-and vast reduction of men in University, the demographics of the Federal Public and Ontario Public Services 55% female), the teaching profession - in Ontario a 400% imbalance of females in the 20-30 age cohort, ( with the disintegration of the family few male role models thanks to social engineering by Family Court Judges), the health profession dominated by females, 90% sole physical custody to moms, 75% of divorces initiated by females. We seem to live in a very female centric society and I'm frankly tired of seeing boys suffer the consequences.

I can understand helping girls in the 3rd world overcome some of the disparities they may suffer but no such societal impediments exist in this country other than through feminist mythology.

Actions do speak far louder than words. I am contemplating filing a human rights complaint against this blatant sexism within Canada, which will have a negative impact on your organization and your sponsors. Would you advise what, if anything, you have in store for boys and whether you are diverting funds donated by people to help third world families to this discriminatory effort toward a single gender in Canada? I'm certainly never going to donate one thin dime to your cause ever again nor purchase anything from your sponsors and I will advise all my fellow males across Canada to do likewise, unless I get some satisfactory answers.

Another fine column by Barbara Kay below. My comments in the thread are as follows:

One of the real signs of the "official" pendulum swinging back toward the middle will be the dismantling of the Official Federal Government apparatchik propaganda machine for legally sanctioning misandry called the Status of Women Canada. Real Women of Canada in their latest newsletter support this and have shown through research some of the reasons why. www.realwomenca.com/.../newslnd0901.html

I support it and it would send a clear signal to all the other levels of government with their professional Feminists firmly entrenched as bureaucrats a page has been turned and its time for balance in gender relationships.

I too have seen discernible movement in the pendulum but it is being held back by our own tax dollars at all levels of government. I find it interesting that SOW Canada gives grants to organizations of professional feminists who cannot earn a living without tax dollars, and they then turn around and use the money to castigate the very government who gave it. The entrenched Victim oriented feminists in SOW Canada see this as a way to propagandize, through untruths, the so called plight of women and, in turn, justify their existence.

Jason Kenny saw through this on the immigration side by cutting funding now we need to get the Minister responsible for SOW Canada to do likewise.

Those of us in the trenches advocating to get laws changed will eventually endure and we will be persistent. When one sees the imbalances in degrees granted and vast reduction of men in University, the demographics of the Federal Public and Ontario Public Services (55% female), the teaching profession - in Ontario a 400% imbalance of females in the 20-30 age cohort, (its rare for a boy to have a male teacher in the first 10 years of school and with the disintegration of the family few male role models thanks to social engineering by Family Court Judges), the health profession, 90% sole physical custody to moms, 75% of divorces initiated by females spurred on by your own tax dollars at work in feminist community groups, dads marginalized as visitors - one sees the need for change.

The last census saw for the first time married's as a minority. That is telling and a clear sign the feminists are winning the war and more men are shying away from a potential lifetime of financial servitude.

Here is a quote from one of them:

"How will the family unit be destroyed? ...The demand alone will throw the whole ideology of the family into question, so that women can begin establishing a community of work with each other and we can fight collectively. Women will feel freer to leave their husbands and become economically independent, either through a job or welfare."

Roxanne Dunbar, Female Liberation as a Basis for Social Revolution, New England Free Press, 1974)

This is very much the state of affairs today.

I am optimistic change will come albeit slowly but it is happening in the MSM. I was shocked to see Wente's article but it did represent a significant event to see another female journalist assist in the uncovering of a feminist lie and crass marketing of their victimhood.MJM

Something odd occurred in the two days following the 20th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre earlier this month. Commentaries by both Margaret Wente of The Globe and Mail and Jonathan Kay of the Post were sharply critical of the emotive and irrational linkage of the Massacre with the phenomenon of domestic violence against women. Neither pundit is known to be anti-feminist in general, but both columns recommended we desacralize the Polytechnique killings, accept them for the freak tragedy they were and stop guilt-tripping all men for Marc Lépine’s unique paranoiac fixations.

Ranting about the unwholesome social ends to which the Massacre has been put used to be my lonely job every Dec. 6. Finding myself in such good company was a happy surprise and, I think, an iconoclastic cultural moment: Let us recognize that female victimhood is not intrinsically more tragic than male victimhood, these columns seemed to say.

Commonsensical Canadians are losing patience with the angry, blame-all-males school of feminism. It’s no accident that the feminist Toronto Women’s Bookstore, for years a bustling cynosure of the cultural zeitgeist, is in danger of closing down. Or that once overflowing women’s studies classes are emptying out, or morphing into “gender studies” to attract more students (a trap, really: Gender studies are also gynocentric, offering a more subtle version of heterosexual male-bashing than women’s studies).

Rob Kenedy, an associate professor in the sociology department of York University with a specialty in the men’s rights movement, was unique amongst sociologues in teaching a course in the 1990s about men and their particular tribulations and needs. In a telephone interview he recalled his surprise when more young women signed up than men: “Women are far more interested in learning about men and masculinity than men are.”

Because the numbers in universities are so skewed to the distaff — in a current obligatory sociology course, his own tutorial is comprised of 25 women and two men — Kenedy predicts sociology departments will have to open up (positive) masculinity courses to satisfy the burgeoning curiosity of women about what makes men tick.

Kenedy is convinced, as I am, that we are exiting the gender wars. Feminism is increasingly “out of fashion” and recent years have seen “a crumbling of the [feminist] foundation.” Culturally sanctioned misandry is beginning to cause discomfort. Women today, he says, want equality without stridency, a return to feminism’s first principles.

Positive acknowledgment of masculinity began with the public honour paid to courageous fallen firefighters of 9/11. For Canadians it is more linked to public mourning around the deaths of soldiers in Afghanistan. From the outset of her tenure in 1999, governor general Adrienne Clarkson embraced her patronage of the military — integrated, but still the last cultural bastion of indisputably masculine virtues — with inspirational acts of solidarity with our troops, and Michaëlle Jean has continued the tradition with enthusiasm.

In the past decade, we have started noticing that boys exist as something other than future violent men in need of pre-emptive anger management (the main thrust of the White Ribbon Campaign in schools). We have been made aware — uncomfortably, graphically — that boys also suffer sexual and physical abuse from both men and women. Continuing revelations of boys’ victimization in church-run residential schools and highly publicized pedophilia amongst some priests, sports coaches and parents cannot be ignored.

The recent publication of commissioner G. Normand Glaude’s statement on the long-running Cornwall Public Inquiry into pedophile rings contains a litany of shameful deficits in our legal and social institutions that have facilitated ongoing abuse of boys because they are not equipped — and for ideological reasons have lacked interest in equipping themselves — to deal with boys’ and men’s psychological responses to abuse. That will change.
My predictions — call them hopes if you prefer — for the next decade:

We will see the return of the traditional family unit as a phenomenon worthy of concern and respect. The needs of children will come first;

Equal parenting will become the default custody arrangement as the optimal situation for children; the resultant decline in adversarial legal battles will diminish false allegations of abuse by women and punitive support-withholding by men, both of which punish children more than parents;

The specific needs of boys and men will be accorded the same pedagogical, social and legal rights and respect as girls: We will see funding for shelters for abused men and children, or ungendered family shelters for whoever needs it;

Domestic violence will be acknowledged as a serious but bilateral problem that is unacceptable, whether perpetrated by men or women. But we will also acknowledge that systemic misogyny of the kind made manifest in honour crimes against women is a culturally-derived phenomenon that is alien to Canadian values, and that it is wrong to assign collective guilt for such crimes to Canadian men.

If the pendulum in the gender wars really is swinging back to the middle, it should become received wisdom that men and women are genetically hard-wired for different strengths, weaknesses and psychological needs.

So, having agreed that intact families are by far the greatest predictors of success for children than anything else, we will jettison the power struggle paradigm feminism has been pushing for decades. We will move toward a collaborative model in which men and women are equal in value but, guided by nature and common sense, separate in their parental roles and influence. The result will be a happier, more productive generation of Canadian children.
As a good-faith start to this paradigm shift — and this really will restore some dignity to gender relations — let’s retire the Montreal Massacre from public life and return mourning rituals for the Polytechnique victims to the families of the victims. As a logical extension, the systemically sexist White Ribbon Campaign should be mothballed and replaced by a gender-neutral educational program against all forms of violence, informed by evidence-based, non-ideological studies.

Am I dreaming in technicolour? Let me know in 2020. Happy New Year to all my readers.
National Post

I don't know if those hopes will come true Barbara, though personally (as a young(er) Canadian), I do hold these values and I am always challenging my significant other to prove to me that the traditional family unit isn't one to strive for (always makes for fun arguments!).

The problem is that maintaining a traditional family unit is very expensive in today's world, and I know not everyone is willing to wait until they can establish one before they have kids. Still, it's worthy to strive for as far as I'm concerned.

by jimshort19
Dec 30 2009
2:04 PM

Barbara, you are justifiably optimistic, and your every wish is good. The battle of the sexes ended on Jan. 28, 1986 when space shuttle Challenger killed Krista McAulliffe. Men had said, "She's not a pilot, she has no business. " Their mouths were stopped when they saw the sacrifice. They resigned and forever so, but we all won.

by DaMan30
Dec 30 2009
2:04 PM

The family unit is in dire need of support and the pendulum is swinging back to a less radical position.

Marriage is tough and needs all the societal backing it can get. I support single parent families but no longer at the expense of two parent families.

I have certainly become so much more aware of this issue thanks to excellent and brave articles by Ms. Kay.

by Tossed Salad
Dec 30 2009
2:39 PM

The business of the hate group known as gender feminism is too huge to die. It supports the misandric and their pretty boys to the tune of billions of dollars. Not unlike the global warming idiots. They will lie, cheat, steal, and misrepresent facts and figures to keep their bank accounts fat and happy.

Ms. Kay you are a

misogynist misogynist misogynist

signed

Robert M and its ilk.

by Sassylassie
Dec 30 2009
3:04 PM

I'm off topic Mrs. Kay but I think you should read the following link and look at the pictures, our taxdollars fund programs for this organization.

@Ryan - " The problem is that maintaining a traditional family unit is very expensive in today's world

________________________________

Its far more expensive to get unmarried if you are a man and are required to support two households with spousal and child support. If you are married work as hard as you can at it otherwise you, as a man, are toast. She gets the kids, the house, and more than 50% of your net income for a very long time. If you are not married do not until the laws change.

You do not live on the same planet as i do Jim. Ask the 10's of thousands of dads across the country who lost their children to gender apartheid laden family courts if it ended then.

by MikeMurphy
Dec 30 2009
4:06 PM

One of the real signs of the "official" pendulum swinging back toward the middle will be the dismantling of the Official Federal Government apparatchik propaganda machine for legally sanctioning misandry called the Status of Women Canada. Real Women of Canada in their latest newsletter support this and have shown through research some of the reasons why. www.realwomenca.com/.../newslnd0901.html

I support it and it would send a clear signal to all the other levels of government with their professional Feminists firmly entrenched as bureaucrats a page has been turned and its time for balance in gender relationships.

I too have seen discernible movement in the pendulum but it is being held back by our own tax dollars at all levels of government. I find it interesting that SOW Canada gives grants to organizations of professional feminists who cannot earn a living without tax dollars, and they then turn around and use the money to castigate the very government who gave it. The entrenched Victim oriented feminists in SOW Canada see this as a way to propagandize, through untruths, the so called plight of women and, in turn, justify their existence.

Jason Kenny saw through this on the immigration side by cutting funding now we need to get the Minister responsible for SOW Canada to do likewise.

Those of us in the trenches advocating to get laws changed will eventually endure and we will be persistent. When one sees the imbalances in degrees granted and vast reduction of men in University, the demographics of the Federal Public and Ontario Public Services (55% female), the teaching profession - in Ontario a 400% imbalance of females in the 20-30 age cohort, (its rare for a boy to have a male teacher in the first 10 years of school and with the disintegration of the family few male role models thanks to social engineering by Family Court Judges), the health profession, 90% sole physical custody to moms, 75% of divorces initiated by females spurred on by your own tax dollars at work in feminist community groups, dads marginalized as visitors - one sees the need for change.

The last census saw for the first time married's as a minority. That is telling and a clear sign the feminists are winning the war and more men are shying away from a potential lifetime of financial servitude.

Here is a quote from one of them "How will the family unit be destroyed? ..The demand alone will throw the whole ideology of the family into question, so that women can begin establishing a community of work with each other and we can fight collectively. Women will feel freer to leave their husbands and become economically independent, either through a job or welfare."

Roxanne Dunbar, Female Liberation as a Basis for Social Revolution, New England Free Press, 1974)

This is very much the state of affairs today.

I am optimistic change will come albeit slowly but it is happening in the MSM. I was shocked to see Wente's article but it did represent a significant event to see another female journalist assist in the uncovering of a feminist lie and crass marketing of their victimhood.
by Ryan_
Dec 30 2009
4:15 PM

Its far more expensive to get unmarried if you are a man and are required to support two households with spousal and child support. If you are married work as hard as you can at it otherwise you, as a man, are toast. She gets the kids, the house, and more than 50% of your net income for a very long time. If you are not married do not until the laws change.

-----------------------------------

I agree, those laws certainly don't help men lead traditional family units without risking more than we bargained for.

by Rectificatif
Dec 30 2009
4:21 PM

Ms Kay's intentions are good. I'm afraid I can't be quite as optimistic as she:

- The hidden part of the iceberg is public-school education, where a whole generation of boys are at risk, many streamed out of the success track. Our boys are joining a disadvantaged class in society - half the population. You'd have to replace 50,000 boy-hating school teachers in North America to address that problem, and also throw out the current reading curriculum and school guidelines.

- "Gender" studies is a very thin euphemism that's worse, in intent, than "women's studies." Genderisms are universal, while womyns studies were less ambitious. Genderisms don't _limit_ the contempt for males, they _extend_ it, by proposing theories -- orthodox creeds, actually -- that claim that women can't live their lives without hating the cultural legacy of the "genderized" world; they can't be women without blaming all petty problems on men. This includes female biology: The only reason a mid-life woman gets unhappy-- goes the theory -- is that male doctoring is indifferent to female biology and hasn't figured out a magic pill for the menopause.

The corollary of this is that breast cancer research, while always needed, is wildly over-funded while the useless PSA test is offered as a defense against prostate cancer, and both are sold on TV ads as equivalents. This isn't just society and its politics; this is the result of an entire generation going through a uniformly anti-male, utterly superficial, & methodologically hermetic educational system which should properly be compared with Hitlerism and Stalinism.

- The mistresses of knowledge & opinion in our society are feminist in training and spirit. The NP is an oasis of male opinionating, so it's not surprising BK hasn't noticed this yet.

- University educators opening tout the "feminization" of males, a goal and a word that would have scandalized the world just 25 years ago.

-The overt stridency of 1st wave feminism is now more covert, as BK says. But not because feminism is on the decline, as Ms Kay suggests, but because it's already won most of the battles. As the men's rights movement progresses, though, expect to see the feminist heavy breathers back on the air and the consecrated misandries once more verbalized with renewed venom.

- The Womyn's Bookstore is dying, not because their trash is going un-read, but because it can't compete with Amazon.com, which contines to stock the effluvia of a feminist book culture. Meanwhile, the writing traditions we built through 2500 years of excellence, yes, mostly penned by men, is being discounted in universities and is too advanced for the feminized graduates to comprehend.

It's a bad bad scenario, Barbara, and it's gonna get much worse.

by Sassylassie
Dec 30 2009
4:30 PM

Great post Rec, hang in there fellas in a couple of decades perhaps you shall be equal to us gals in the eyes of family law.

by Smokey4531
Dec 30 2009
4:33 PM

These IPV grease-balls make too much money off of the business to surrender to a new progressive ideology of fairness. Like the buffalo they won’t stop their hunting until all men are victimized by the system, extinct, or leave and go somewhere else.

Everywhere you look, and you don’t have to look very far you can see the misandry. On the television, in the commercials, at the Universities, in pop art and culture, anytime a man exhibits male character strengths he is insensitive to women’s sensitivities because they are not comfortable with it. Women don’t like male character strengths because it places them in a secondary role and that is unacceptable to the radical feminists. That is until they are in a lesbian relationship where one of the partners is more masculine than most men I’ve seen.

Girls can get into boys hockey change rooms, but does this work in reverse? Girls are outperforming boys in the school system at just about every level, but there is no prejudice there. Women in Universities are receiving diplomas who can’t even write. Whereas men and boys are held to such a high degree of accountability that failure is inevitable, so why try?

A two class society has been created that cannot sustain itself; children not being born, a 1.6 percent birth rate, this is a self destroying ideology but as long as the hunting is good lets persecute the fathers, young men, and boys, and if they are Christian or in the military so much the better.

This White Ribbon Campaign is just another example of a society bent on extinction; the faster society collapses under the weight of this ideological nightmare the better. If it collapses then it can be rebuilt to resemble a humanitarian caring society that has faith in both genders, if there is anything left to rebuild.

Sorry B.K. I guess I’m not as optimistic as you might be with your predictions. These people in the IPV and divorce industry who I would guess are the people promoting the White Ribbon Campaign have learned a behaviour that is lucrative (positive reinforcement), and any Doctor of Psychology can tell you how hard it is to make them stop hunting the buffalo for their economic and ideological gratification.

Technicolor dreaming are you sure you aren’t on the left B.K.

by rossbcan
Dec 30 2009
5:09 PM

The gender wars, war on poverty, save the children, war of terror, etc are ALL manifestations of "Social Policy", the false concept that good can come from false rationalizations of "necessary evil".

When "Social Policy" undergoes an Orwellian deSpin to true meaning, it becomes:

"All persons are not to be treated equally, in terms of rights and responsibilities, by law" or, equivalent to the basic Nazi moral statement regarding Jews and others deemed "social inferiors".

The legal "profession" thrives on the conflict (legal fees) this yields and we are impoverished and our children caught in the crossfire, abused collateral damage. It takes years of legal predations and abuse to determine "childrens best interests". The conflict does not end until all parties are impoverished.

The Nazis rationalized away the "rule of law" and, so have we. This is costing civilization and tending to world war, "the big one".

http://www.cli.gs/RuleOfLaw

Justice Defined: We are all free to profit or suffer and learn (adapt to excellence) by facing the consequences of our OWN choices. Injustice is to be forced to suffer the consequences of choices of unaccountable (irresponsible) others..

"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern. The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class." ~ Lord Acton

On the specific topic of gender wars and our insane divorce courts, my comments in the linked thread explain exactly how and why I have fought these antisocial predators and @ssholes to a stalemate:

I wanted to add a word of appreciation for Margaret Wente, whose full contribution to this debate is not really expressed in the editorial. Ms Wente has been an articulate and careful writer in defense of reason, and against feminist mythologising, for over a decade.

What's useful to know is that Ms Wente is on the permanent Hit-List on campuses, within feminist indoctrination programs, but it would be risky to praise her even in the corridors of typical university departments.

Many tenured feminists will denigrate Wente to students. Of course, thoughtful & mature women eventually rebel against the hate. But what you have to do is analogize for the entire sample: It took the Allies 20 years to de-program the remnants of the Hitler Youth program, and it took a military occupation to do it.

If you think radical feminism is any different from Nazi ideology, think again; they merely mess with different targets. Both are forms of identity politics based upon similar epistemologies (theories of knowledge). Both spring from a perversion of history and culture; a construct of grievance and identity; and a theory of group superiority.

by Tossed Salad
Dec 30 2009
5:49 PM

Hermann Goering ... "The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Feminists ... "The people can always be brought to the bidding of the feminist leaders. All you have to do is tell women and children that they are being attacked (by men) and denounce those who protest as 'supporters of abuse' and for exposing women and children to danger. It works the same way in any country."

by Denis Pakkala
Dec 30 2009
6:04 PM

Barbara, thanks for the uplifting article, you are in good company. There are many men and women who are recognizing that feminism cannot intelligently defend its position and are openly critical of its discrimination and hatred of men. As well, many men are regaining their pride in masculinity and are defending themselves in the war against men (gender wars). This is not the beginning of the end of the gender wars, this is the beginning of the men’s rights movement making significant gains in achieving equality.

On family violence, feminists are overwhelmed by a mountain of credible research and are avoiding debate altogether. The status quo in domestic violence services, family law, social services and policing is based on ideological feminist training that men are at fault and their primary response is to destroy families and discriminate against men.

The obstacles are huge. There will be future constitutional or human rights challenges against the women’s shelter system discrimination against men. There will be future public exposure and public enquiries into the discriminatory actions of social services, the police and family law. The entire system of feminist academia and government bureaucrats will need to be vetted of feminist ideology and re-trained. There will be many great successes for men’s rights and parental rights in the next 10 years, but this is a multi-generational problem.

I don’t believe there will be a movement to go back to traditional families, as traditional gender roles are oppressive to both men and women. Rather than supporting traditional families, there will be growing support for strong and healthy families (including traditional families) which is in the best interests of children. There will also be growing support for parental rights as a constitutional amendment to restrain the ability of the state to arbitrarily destroy families and interfere with the rights of children.

Michaelle Jean has a prior history in women’s shelters. She has also been crystal clear that she supports the rights of women, minorities and youth. Her ceremonial attendance of military functions is a self-serving popularity stunt. Michaelle Jean could become a great leader if she would follow the example of the Honourable Senator Anne Cools.

“Honourable members, I come here to ask for fairness, balance and equilibrium in this law. I do this because the legal and social condition around domestic violence is one that I can only describe as a heart of darkness. This condition is rendered more difficult by official government disinclination to accept the obvious fact that violence and aggression are human problems, not gender problems. I shall ask you to examine the proposition that men and women are equally capable of vice and equally capable of virtue, and that virtue is a human characteristic, not a gender one.”

-Senator Anne Cools.

by gulliverian
Dec 30 2009
6:11 PM

I was a student at the University of Toronto in the years just after the Montreal atrocity. A vigil was arranged on Philosopher's Walk on the UofT campus. It was made very clear that men were not welcome, as if somehow men were not outraged, or frightened for their wives, sisters, daughters or other loved ones.

I would have been there, but the man-hating belligerence of that incident put me off feminism for a long time.

It would be nice to think we've moved past that sort of thing.

by Rectificatif
Dec 30 2009
6:39 PM

Excellent cross-reference and analogy, Tossed!! Well done.

Informally, you get an A+ (Dept. chair is a feminist; she will reduce it to D).

I am waiting for posts by the Official Denier Brigade, that army of condescending sirens, mostly feminized males, who habitually come in to tell us "it's all in your minds, fellers, suck it up."

But it's fun to be on holidays and able to type our little hearts out. Yet our deniers must still be finishing their breakfasts. So I will place a bit of documentary evidence into the record.

From an essay by 2 current literary critics, Lyda Boose and Richard Burt, 1997. Essay topic is how to understand Shakespeare as theatre that is represented on film.

No offense to these 2 academic victims; their essay just happened to be ready at hand.

Quote: "In the wake of the current displacements of book and literary culture by film and video culture . . . the traditional literary field itself has, to some extent, been displaced as an object of enquiry by cultural studies."

[Translation: feminist cultural studies is the new way to understand Shakespeare; never mind explanations from drama, the philosophy of art, or poetry.]

Quote: "For Shakespeare studies, what the transition from a literary to an electronic culture logically presages is exactly what, in fact, seems to be happening: an increased interest in the strategies of performance accompanied by a decreased focus on the poetic and rhetorical. . . involving a less serious relation to criticism and its subjects."

[Translation: forget worrying about why Shakespeare wrote what he wrote and even what it meant to his audience; just tell us what the performance _means to you_.]

Quote: "New ways of reading the transvesticism of the Renaissance stage, for example, are being discovered by contextualizing the cross-dressed Shakespearian heroine alongside pop culture figures such as Michael Jackson and Madonna. . . It could be said that this shift to a cultural studies approach opens new possibilities for a kind of Shakespeare criticism with wider appeal to a non-academic public."

[Translation: Cultural studies, highly charged with academic feminism, is the breeding ground for a welcome dumbing down of the culture.]

The athors then go on to claim that Shakespeare is a token of "British cultural superiority" and, by inference, of class prejudice and imperialist cultural reach.

Now go back and talk to your kids. Probe what they've learned recently about Shakespeare, who is, and will always remain IMHO, the summit of our cultural heritage.

by Rectificatif
Dec 30 2009
6:54 PM

With apologies for mis-typing the name of Lynda Boose.

by foxercat
Dec 30 2009
7:00 PM

A lesbian feminist had wrote the traditional family must be destroyed-husband,wife and kids is the traditional family.No doubt that is a stupid and mean idea.Feminists saying this type of nonsense publicly they must say even worst behind the scenes.Women studies is really feminist studies and unfortunately is much anti-male and pro lesbianism.This type of column by Mrs.Kay and the National Post here is exactly the reason the National Post newspaper is more outstanding than most of the other Canadian newspapers.Canada needs to get more back into Judeo-Christian values and start promoting the traditional family and heterosexuality too!!.

by MikeMurphy
Dec 30 2009
8:00 PM

@by Tossed Salad Dec 30 2009

5:49 PM

______________________________

Nicely put. Feminists understand the psycho/social marketing of their myths as well as other ideologies based on hate and supremacy. The Nazis were masters at it.

Adolf Hitler, said:

The efficiency of the truly national leader consists primarily in preventing the division of the attention of a people, and always in concentrating it on a single enemy.

For the feminist the single enemy is men. They have learned well.

by robins111
Dec 30 2009
8:09 PM

As the old saying goes Barbara, You've came a long way..

But I think you're correct, the pendulum will start back.. but the problem is, that the SOW's of the world will fight like banshee's and force it to swing too far.

We need a lot of Kenny's in the federal government to clean house of these socialist programs.

by Rectificatif
Dec 30 2009
8:36 PM

Wanna know what's happening? Wanna know what's going down at the high school?

Read the list of cities their propaganda bus has been to. Look at the paid media represented on the tour.

Now, to be clear, I'm in favor of a certain female advocacy in the 3rd world -- the ONLY place where women still have to fight for equality. However, how many "Because I'm a Boy" movements are there in your sons' classes, guys? Parents, be aware.

by Smokey4531
Dec 30 2009
9:14 PM

The arrival of women studies into our Universities a little history if you wish.

97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx

It kind of makes the male gender run not walk to the nearest exit.

A snippet from Christina Hoff Sommers, “Their moral authority comes from a widespread belief that they represent ‘women.’ In fact, their version of feminism falls short of being representative.” End quote

To quote Barbara Kay, “We will move toward a collaborative model in which men and women are equal in value but, guided by nature and common sense, separate in their parental roles and influence. The result will be a happier, more productive generation of Canadian children.” End quote.

Sounds like a fairy tale B.K. darn it I wish this was possible.

by theshadow
Dec 30 2009
9:19 PM

Barbara Kay:

I usually really enjoy your fine writing but in this case I feel you have suddenly been struck with naivete. So long as the Canadian teachers are primarily female and from the feminist persuasion young males will be mentally abused and made to feel inferior to female students. That is where it starts they then get out to the working world and they find that life gets even worse, they are the lowest form of life with little chance of improving their situation.

When our own government puts out adds showing the effects of their assistance program regarding the recession they show in almost every case men doing blue collar jobs and women doing white collar. this sends a message to young men that we now have a drone society where the male of the species just does what their female superiors tell them.

A day of watching CBC will show you how males have no say in what goes on in the media. Watching Suhana Meharchand in action if you fired a cannon through the CBC studio you wouldn't hit a man, not that they're quicker but because they do not exist.

When women get a position of power the first thing they do is see if they can replace all those useless drones.

I have a six year old grandson who lives in a house where his father comes home from working 12 and 14 hour days (owns a business) and mom doesn't make supper because women don't serve men. She is home all day!

In summary women are more militant than ever before I really don't know how males will come out of this but I don't see the future as very bright.

by Sassylassie
Dec 30 2009
10:01 PM

It's not just academia and our feminists' riddled educational system indoctornating our children that men are evil and violent and bad. From my perspective so do our police agencies with their hyped up over sensitive reactions to domestic abuse. The legal system has gone from ignoring domestic abuse as a "Family issue" to "Men are always the violent ones".

I recently got to witness the most absurb case of domestic abuse that didn't happen. A relative called the cops and accused her spouse of making threatening phone calls and assulting her. The problem was he had an air tight alibi for the time she says the assult and threats took place, well no one cared, the police showed up at his home and arrested him whilst he was eating supper he resisted arrest so they charged him with that to. Well the wife called the cops and said her husband was suicidal so they locked him up for a thirty day assessment based on her word. While this man was rotting in a rubber room she was milking the system for sympathy and perks. Did the police contact his alibi, nope. Did his "Crown appointed lawyer" call his alibi nope he/she/it was on vacation for the duration of his lawful incarceration. To make along story short he was arrested and charged for a crime he didn't commit, he was incarcerated in a mental ward at the prison based on alligations from a woman who marries men for profit. The police made no effort to investigate her complaint they took her word for it and it was a done deal. Apparently he'll get his day in court to prove his innocence (what happened to innocent until proven guilty?) he also gets to spend tens of thousand of dollars defending himself for a crime he didn't commit. On the upside he was awarded a very large cash settlement for physical damages he suffered from a previous on the job injury on the down side the wife had him lock-in the money (no he didn't know what he was signing) in her name and his for two years. Wanna guess when the money was going to be unlocked? I can honestly say that I have become jaded and angry at how easy it is for my sex to destroy a man's reputation with false alligations of domestic abuse. I'm horrified that men are treated as guilty when charged with domestic abuse and must prove their innocence instead of the crown proving guilt.

The man in question has the IQ of a house plant, an unpleasant man to be sure but did he deserve his ordeal no he didn't. On the upside I recommended he sign his over his locked in monies over to a new non- crown appointed lawyer. Sure the lawyer will eat up the money, but it's better than that money grubbing hateful ditch getting her hands on it. The case will before the courts in the new year, still waiting for the cops or crown to contact his alibis.

by MikeMurphy
Dec 30 2009
10:08 PM

Rect: Thanks for the link to the girl campaign. Its been on TV frequently but focused on the 3rd world. Its also interesting the people behind it are Plan Canada (NGO formerly known as Foster Parent Plan) whose main goal supposedly in taking donations is to benefit the 3rd world.

I'll write a note to find out about their "Boy" campaign in Canada and if they don't have one discuss why this sexism exists in this country from an organization taking money for poverty stricken children in other countries of all faiths and cultures. Apparently not all genders though. plancanada.ca/.../Page.aspx

by Rectificatif
Dec 30 2009
10:51 PM

What excellent contributions! This has to be the most thoughtful and genuine discussion I've read in months. Sassy, your account is not only horrifying, it's routine in the way injustice is meted out to married men.

Mainstream politics, like mainstream media, are owned by feminism, which, by the way, is now a State dogma -- evolved from a decade ago, when it was merely the Ruling Ideology. Which is why the current government is paralyzed on these matters.

"Those who are indifferent to their condition merit their oppression." So, when will the Men's Movement get organized? Notwithstanding its male composition, I nominate Sassy and Barb to co-chair the first assembly.
by Sassylassie
Dec 30 2009
11:05 PM

I'd happyly take the job Rec, but feminists' hate thus me I'd do more harm than good.

by Rectificatif
Dec 30 2009
11:19 PM

Oh, and one more thing. Remember the ad where the imbecile husband builds a deck inside his living room? And the follow-up ad that came after that?

Those were designed to make wives send their obedient spouses out for reno materials to be paid for by the husbands.

For having programmed 2 of the most demeaning & anti-male, advertisements in the history of television, isn't Rona going to pay a price?

Men, are you as stupid as Rona says you are? And what are your sons thinking about it?

by MikeMurphy
Dec 30 2009
11:57 PM

My request for info to Plan Canada on the "I am a Girl Campaign" follows:

I am a very confused father of 4 daughters 2 of whom are out of school and the 2 youngest are doing quite well in our school system. I see your PS ads on TV focusing on the 3rd world and below I see your description of your organization.

The bolding is mine.

Plan is a global movement for change to help children in more than 45 developing countries.

* Each year, our work impacts the lives of more than 3.5 million families and their children in over 25,000 communities.

* Plan is a not for profit organization and we work with people of all different religions and cultures. (but apparently not genders)

You say you are helping children and families but all I see is a very visible campaign for girls. http://www.becauseiamagirl.ca/

Although Ontario, where I reside, is a "have not" Province within our Federation, we are not yet a 3rd world country save some aboriginal reserves. It doesn't say anything about boys who for many years in Canada have been way behind girls in terms of academic achievement. In fact boys seldom see a male teacher in their first 10 years of education. Here are a few of many areas favouring females in this country. Serious imbalances in degrees granted, approximately 60% female - 40% male-and vast reduction of men in University, the demographics of the Federal Public and Ontario Public Services 55% female), the teaching profession - in Ontario a 400% imbalance of females in the 20-30 age cohort. (i've removed some stuff here as it is above) We seem to live in a very female centric society and I'm frankly tired of seeing boys suffer the consequences.

I can understand helping girls in the 3rd world overcome some of the disparities they may suffer but no such societal impediments exist in this country other than through feminist mythology.

Actions do speak far louder than words. I am contemplating filing a human rights complaint against this blatant sexism within Canada, which will have a negative impact on your organization and your sponsors. Would you advise what, if anything, you have in store for boys and whether you are diverting funds donated by people to help third world families to this discriminatory effort toward a single gender in Canada? I'm certainly never going to donate one thin dime to your cause ever again nor purchase anything from your sponsors and I will advise all my fellow males across Canada to do likewise, unless I get some satisfactory answers.

I will also be publicizing this through my blogs.

I await your response.

Mike Murphy

by Rectificatif
Dec 31 2009
12:59 AM

Great stuff, Mike. This campaign is an example of the fatuous pro-female blather the boys contend with. If you could find a male social worker or an unfeminized male psychologist, they could testify to how abandoned the boys are.

The news of Michelle Lang's unhappy end has just come in. We will now witness 2 weeks of media hysteria around this, something no male journalist would be accorded. Schools and government programs will be named for her.

I don't want to be ungenerous, and my heartfelt sympathy goes to her family. However, I am in mourning each day, when I get up, for each and every real soldier, mainly men, who has died for our country on a foreign battlefield, and I'll keep my perspective as it is, thank you.

by TateD
Dec 31 2009
1:07 AM

You are are a brave lady, Barbara, and almost always right (in my view) but perhaps a bit too optimistic in your predictions (hopes). You are right about 9/11, as I used to count the number of articles that were derogatory or contemptuous about men in the Ottawa Citizen. For years and it ranged from three to seven per day, seven days per week up until 9/11. Then they almost disappeared. At the least, if the day ever comes when my tax dollars do not go to funding this feminist racist crap, I'll be happy.

D. Tate

by Denis Pakkala
Dec 31 2009
5:09 AM

This is a great discussion. Barbara Kay and Margaret Wente are not the only women who are critical of feminism. We need more honourable women, who love men and care about the future of their sons.

There is a natural inclination in men to acquiese to women's demands in order to seek and maintain positions of leadership. Women really do hold all the power and we need the leadership of honourable women like Barbara Kay to help fight for justice

Grant Brown - Women and Children First

westernstandard.bitcurve.com/.../women-and-children-first-2.html

"What works against men in the contemporary battle of the sexes is their innate chivalry. One of the most common remarks I get from men when I criticize the manipulative excesses of feminism is along these lines: “I agree with just about everything you said, but I would never say it myself. There would be [professional or personal] repercussions.” Most men are terrified of speaking the truth about gender equality as they see it, for fear that they will end up in the proverbial dog house."

by MikeMurphy
Dec 31 2009
5:30 AM

Dennis:

Very true words and as you well know when we do speak the truth plainly we will get lots and lots of hate mail not too mention being put on virtual hate sites by very malicious female bloggers.

There is a downside to male advocacy when they know your name and where you live but in the end it is worth it. It all boils down to one thing for many men - the passion we derive from the love of our children. Not only would we die for them but we will go through hell on earth to become equal parents as we once were before incompetent Family Court Judges practiced a form of gender apartheid on us. Judges may know the law but they know nothing of complex human relationships, negative social outcomes for children in single parent mom homes, and the long term impacts on children who lack solid male role models, especially boys but including our daughters.

We will eventually prevail through our persistence, perseverance and the knowledge we are on the moral high ground. We want nothing more than equality.

by ZeeBC
Dec 31 2009
6:33 AM

Methinks the only way to reduce the damage done by Femnazis is to cut off their funding. This forces them to getting a real job and earn a living. Some will survive but they will be history when Sharia becomes the law of the land. (Demographics). The new males in town will whip them into tents quicker than a hot knife cuts butter.

by ZeeBC
Dec 31 2009
6:51 AM

Not that I have any sympathy for the lout but fairs fair. Spousal abuse and violence is mandatory arrest is it not? So when Elin broke Eldrick's cheek bone and two front teeth with a steel rod (9 iron, Fox Nation), why wasn't she hauled off to the slammer? If Tiger did it to her he'd still be cooling his heels.

About Me

I am Politically active and right of centre on most issues with the odd exception such as legalization of "Mary Jane".
I advocate on changes to Family Law - an incredibly dysfunctional arena where parents are pitted against one another and children are the victims.
My picture will sometimes show me as a younger man simply because I like them.

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Leading causes of Injury to Women 2006

In 2006, unintentional falls were the leading cause of nonfatal injury among women of every age group, and rates generally increased with age. Women aged 65 years and older had the highest rate of injury due to unintentional falls (59.7 per 1,000 women), while slightly more than 19 per 1,000 women aged 18–34 and 35–44 years experienced fall-related injuries. Unintentional injuries sustained as motor vehicle occupants were the second leading cause of injury among 18- to 34-year-olds (18.7 per 1,000), while unintentional overexertion was the second leading cause of injury among women aged 35–44 and 45–64 years (13.7 and 9.3 per 1,000, respectively). Among women aged 65 years and older, being unintentionally struck by or against an object was the second leading cause of injury (5.7 per 1,000).

Injury related Emergency Department Visits

Unintentional and intentional injuries each represented a higher proportion of emergency department (ED) visits for men than women in 2005. Among women and men aged 18 years and older, unintentional injuries accounted for 19.9 and 27.5 percent of ED visits, respectively, while intentional injuries, or assault, represented 1.4 and 2.7 percent of visits, respectively. Among both women and men, unintentional injury accounted for a higher percentage of ED visits among those living in non-metropolitan areas, while adults living in metropolitan areas had a slightly higher percentage of ED visits due to intentional injury.